Embargo Schmargo

The chorus is deafening and in surround sound.

End the Embargo. Stop isolating Cuba. Now!

Well, on January 21.

The basic thrust of the end the embargo argument is that it hasn’t worked and that flooding the island with tourists and dollars will bring about freedom.

You see, according to this theory, the Cubans on the island are too stupid and brainwashed to know what freedom is. Their little Hispanic third world minds cannot understand such an advanced abstract concept. All the lives lost by Cubans either trying to achieve personal or national freedom must have been coincidences.

Material things like hard currency, fancy personal electronics and designer clothes- those are the kind of things that Cubans can understand and once they are exposed to these things through contact with Americans tourists who are visiting the land that the 20th century forgot so they can witness some primitives eek out an existence in quaint misery or take advantage of dark skinned, half starved teenager, they will demand them and the regime will crumble like a 50 year old fortune cookie.

Please!

I propose, that maybe, Cubans on the island, since they don’t have freedom, are the ones that actually understand and cherish a concept that is an abstract idea to those that have never, thank God, had to do with out it- to those that think that freedom is freedom to choose between Merlot and Pinot Noir, between a regular latte or a decaf latte or which island to get wasted on.

The “embargo” is not responsible with the suffering and the poverty that the Cuban people have been forced to endure. The TOTALITARIAN Castro regime is. The Castros are evil. They keep the Cubans hungry and destitute in order to control them.

Giving the regime credit and funds will only allow them to buy more up to date repression gear at the Tyrants Я Us mega store.

What is wrong in Cuba isn’t the Cuban people it is the regime. You don’t need to expose Cubans to anything in order for them to raise their social awareness. They know exactly what they are missing

When the regime in South Africa was broken, the world came together to choke that regime out of existence.

So why is it that when it comes to Cuba, that proven approach isn’t replicated?

Any tyranny is a minority rule, like South Africa had.

In Cuba’s case, however, its leader is world-renown for surviving ten US presidents while being an annoying thorn on their side. Because of this, he is idolized and revered by the international left. And so Cuba’s Anti-Yankee revolution must be preserved at all costs-even if the price is 50 more years of Cuban sweat, blood and tears.

And that’s just not me ranting, it’s exactly Raúl Castro has responded to his big brother’s statement that Cuba “could” talk to a President Obama and the ensuing orgasmic echoes of approval from all parts of the supposedly civilized world.

"we have learned to resist for half a century, and we are prepared to fight for Eanother half century."

That means in the Cuban Regime’s Newspeak that they will continue to hold the Cuban people hostage for as long as they are in power. The Regime isn’t interested in improving the lives of the Cuban people, but only in imposing its will, by force, on the Cuban people for as long as possible.

The only thing that easing the embargo and cozying up to the Cuban tyranny is going to accomplish is to perpetuate the oppression and violation of Human Rights for at least another generation.

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Oh MY!

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My bud, TEP, with another perpective:

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Tomás Estrada-Palma said...

The embargo is a moot point if you have no money. Castro uses "embargo" as an excuse and will do anything to keep it in place. Exiles fear dropping the embargo will save the regime and argue that it will have to mean taxpayer backed credit for Castro.

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It doesn't have to be that way. Make a grand announcement that the embargo is lifted but no credit will be available to the regime until all debt is paid by the thieves in power. Here would be the results:

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1. There is no credit available for honest individuals outside of Cuba.

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2. Castro would lose the last leg keeping him standing - that it is the embargo making Cuba poor.

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3. Castro has no cash and could not buy one penny more than he already buys right now under the embargo. What kind of embargo allows food and medicine? With that kind of thinking we'd still be fighting the Trojan War.

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4. Cuba has very little to sell and that would be exacerbated by the worldwide commodity price deflation. Their commie production model is toast in this market loaded with stuff nobody is buying now anyway.

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Unfortunately, only Castro and Tomas Estrada-Palma understand we are in an information war. If you think you are a good information warrior ask yourself this:

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Have you ever said "I don't care what people think. I say the embargo stays." If you have you are shooting information arrows while Castro is lobbing information grenades into our front lines.

The Cuban "Race"

I remember sitting in Ms. Ryman’s homeroom in Union Hill High School one morning and having to fill out some kind of a form that asked what race I was. One race was white, another black, another “Hispanic” and so on.

That day, I realized that we Cubans were no longer white. All of us Cubans complained that just because we spoke Spanish, it didn’t mean that we weren’t white. Some of us where some of us weren’t, but “Hispanic” wasn’t a race, it was a language. Whatever. Cuban became my race that day. The best story that day was the confusion on the teachers face when a Chinese Cuban asked what she should put down.

So a few days ago, I get an e-mail from an Obamaniac acquaintance about an article in The Miami Herald by a Cuban author, Dr. Carlos Moore who believes that the Cuban regime is quaking in its boots because the newly elected President of the United States is black.

Dr. Carlos Moore-Cuban

Not only that, but when Mr. Obama makes good on rescinding the Bush restrictions on travel and remittances, the pressure put on the regime by the now black population, might just bring the regime crumbling down.

Now, I’m not going to argue with Dr. Moore that blacks in Cuba have it worst that the whites. I have been pointing that out for years. And one can’t argue that people of color throughout the world have been empowered by Obama’s election either. They have.

But will take issue with some of his points, Cuban to Cuban.

For example, Dr. Moore claims that the worst problem of the revolution is racism.

The bottom line is that racism is Cuba's most intractable problem.

That’s funny, I was under the impression that the worst problem Cuban have is that they're being opressed by a totalitarian regime. Would things be any better if the darker Cubans were being repressed just as bad as lighter Cubans? Forget that Cuba has been stuck in the fifties for fifty years. In America, where blacks weren’t even allowed to sit alongside of whites in the restaurants in some areas, a non white has been elected president. Why? Because of democracy.

Had Cuba remained a democratic republic like it was before Batista took it over, who knows what kind of advances in terms of race, it would have achieved. Contrary to Dr. Moore’s assertions, Cuba was not “segregated”

And it really serves no purpose to decry the historical exiles as bigots:

Many, especially the younger generation, have forsaken the racial bigotry of their parents and evinced a growing awareness that the predominantly white face (85 percent) of the Cuban-American community is a political liability in a Cuba that is predominantly black.

I have never in the many years I have been exiled heard any Cuban exile blame blacks for the revolution’s success or claim that the only reason that the regime is still in power is because it has the support of the majority of the non-white population.

Is it then fair to equate the Miami Cubans with Castro? Castro has had TOTAL control over Cuban society for 50 years. The prejudices that Cubans may have had 50 years have no bearing on reality today or are they the cause of the suffering of non-white Cubans under Fidel.

I really think that in his article, Dr.Moore, does a disservice to “our” race by throwing all exiles under the bus as “bigots”

Coño.

Dr. Moore should remember that here in the US none of us are considered white. If the post Obama America can move into a post racial era, it should be a cinch for us Cubans to do the same, even he could do it.

That said, it is important for Dr. Moore to continue to educate black America as to the economic apartheid and racism that the majority of non-white Cubans are forced to endure in addition to the run of the mill totalitarian oppression.

It is important to point out Fidel Castro’s bigotry, (as opposed to the prejudices of the 1950’s Cuban society), to all the black Americans who see Fidel as a sympathetic figure and his revolution as a model for social equality.

It is also important to tell the world that 85% of the incarcerated men in Cuba are not white. And although these men are considered common criminals, the economic conditions that caused them to turn to a life a crime to survive are political and caused by an illegitimate, corrupt and incompetent regime.

And it is imperative that blacks in America understand that many of the leading, bravest and most oppressed dissidents are what in America would be considered black, but are Cuban.

With respected black scholars like Dr. Moore telling the truth about Castro’s revolution, with the help of American civil rights leaders, like the Reverend Al Sharpton who is now advocating for black Cuban prisoners of conscience like Dr. Biscet, Castro and his thugs will lose a strong base of support within the USA-black America.

If their efforts are reinforced by President Obama the mask of the Cuban revolution’s racial equality might finally be taken off-once and for all.

Truthfully, I was ready to dismiss Dr. Moore’s theory asm well, racist, but in reading another article by non other than Guillermo Fariñas Hernández entitled “Thankful for Obama’s Arrival”, I had to reassess my position.

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández - Cuban

According to Fariñas, since Obama was elected, the old myth that Cuba was the model for a post racist society and the US was inherently a racist country, has been shattered. This has forced the regime to revisit the economic apartheid that kept Cuban blacks from getting the better jobs-those with access to hard currency-and they have decreed that 40% of the employees that work in the hard currency stores, the “shoppings”, be non-whites.

Fariñas claims that the non-whites know that they don’t owe their jobs to the revolution, but to President-Elect Obama.

Amazing!

Lighting A Candle...

...To The Ones We Can't Hold A Candle To.


I haven’t posted anything in a long time.

I haven’t really had anything to say, or, better said, I haven’t had anything to say that I thought anyone would want to read.

Not that this is worth reading or anything, but I thought I’d try something more personal to get back into the swing of things…

…Today is Saint Barbara’s feast day- a Cuban holiday of sorts.

I was going to light a candle and wait till midnight. The Saint Barbara vigil-“esperar a Santa Bárbara.”

I was sitting in the dark thinking about this Cuban custom and about the many December 3rds in my past when I had gone to parties to “wait for Saint Barbara.”

At one point in my life, I thought the tradition was primitive, pagan and so third world religiously superstitious. Now, it has become a cultured and a rich, sophisticated Cuban eccentricity. The Cuban people have progressed a lot in twenty years.

Anyway, I was sitting there thinking about the Cuban devotion to this Christian martyr and why the attraction.

I don’t know if I was asleep or dozing off or what, but I had a weird stream of consciousness flowing.

I was looking at the red Santa Bárbara velón that we had bought to use as a hurricane candle. Now, at the risk of being accused of “nada mas acordarme de Santa Bárbara cuando truena,” (only thinking of Saint Barabara when it thunders- a Cardinal Cuban Sin), there IS no better time to light a candle to Santa Bárbara then when you’re in the middle of a thunderstorm or hurricane and the power goes out. A modern mixture of practicality and third world religious superstitiousness and rich cultural eccentricity.

The candle was red- Santa Bárbara’s color. I thought of Cuban women wearing red on Dec. 4th. Then, came the association of red with communism and why I don’t like red.

And so in the cool, quiet dark as I lingered between reality and a dream, the red candle became Cuba and the tower at the foot of the virgin was “El morro.”

Saint Barbara was the captive Cuba, isolated from the rest of the world, tortured by a tyrannical father because she had chosen the truth and the light over pagan Godlessness.

Santa Bárbara, rebellious, had miraculously escaped the tower where her father locked her up for her beliefs just like many Cubans who were locked up in La Cabaña, next to the tower of El Morro. And she was persecuted and martyred for intransigently clinging to her principles.

And as I drifted further from reality, Santa Bárbara was there, sword in hand, only she had Yoani Sanchez’s face with her haunting dark eyes and Cuban Mona Lisa smile and she stood in front of El Morro with a tear running down her face.

I suddenly was startled back to the reality I had drifted from by my nodding head, and for a fleeting instant it was all so crystal clear- Santa Bárbara, Cuba and our devotion to red clad, sword wielding rebels. It was all so crystal clear until I drifted off again.

Like the Apostles in the garden of Gethsemane, I had been too weak to stay awake and light the candle for Santa Bárbara and Cuba and Yoani and the many that have been martyred for their beliefs-those that I could never hold a candle to.

This morning, imprisoned in three dimensions, my mind cannot make the connections and associations and the once crystal clear revelation is more like a foggy hallucination. But, it is clear that I should light that candle in admiration.

Coincidently, while looking for a picture of Santa Bárbara to go along with this meditation, I found I wasn’t the only son of a son of a sailor who’s mind had associated Santa Bárbara with freedom, exile…and a salty piece of land.




A Salty Piece Of Land ------Jimmy Buffett

I was listening for answers
That I could not really hear
When the words of a wise old Indian
Put a conch shell to my ear

And I took off for the ocean
I was searching for the coast
Painting pictures of my vision
With the words from grandma ghost

Hiding from the dragons
Riding for the sea
Singing ballads from my childhood
“A pirate’s life for me”

Survivors seem to function best
When peril is at hand
With a song of the ocean
Meets a salty piece of land

I was force-fed my religion
But I somehow saved my smile
Tapped into my instincts
As I headed to’ards exile

Cleopatra did not own a barge
But a schooner was her home
She has centuries of stories
And there’s wisdom in her bones

She was on a sacred mission
And she told me of a place
Where a man can hide forever
But never loose his face

So I saddled up my seahorse
With a fly-rod in my hand
I was not looking for salvation
Just a salty piece of land

Somedays Cayo Loco SHIMMERS
Like the stars up in the sky
And the seabirds they do touch and gos
As the world just tangos by

But there are times when she is hidden
Beneath the wild and crashing waves
And the patron saint of lightening
Keeps the sailors from their graves

Some say it is a blinding sword
Pointing out into the sea
While others say her guiding light
Leads to’ards eternity

Still I sit in contemplation
And I just don’t understand
This mysterious attraction
Of this salty piece of land

Still I search the constellations
And the tiny grains of sand
Where the song of the ocean
Meets the salty piece of land

Raul’s “Sing a Song”

My father always told me that it was easy being a communist, and the first thing you had to do was loose your shame.-“lo primero que se pierde es la vergüenza.”

When you have no shame, no principles, it’s easy to hate and to let the means justify the ends. Everything is relative in the Marxist philosophical heaven of dialectic materialism.

It is estimated, for example, that in Red China, the ends, absolute and total power, justified the means, the deaths of about 65,000,000 to 70,000,000 lives, give or take a few million, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong.

That’s more deaths than are attributed to Stalin and Hitler combined!

Yet in Cuba, Mao Zedong is revered by the regime’s new leader, Raúl Castro.

While the “president” of China, Hu Jintao was visiting Havana, Raúl felt compelled to sing a song of praise and adulation to the Chinese mass murderer:

President Raul Castro was in such good spirits on Tuesday that he led 200 Chinese students learning Spanish at a Cuban school in an impromptu sing-along of a Chinese song about late China leader Mao Zedong.

He said he learned the song from a Chinese delegate at a youth rights conference in Austria in 1953.

"I don't have the memory that Fidel has, but I remember that song," he said.

Raúl can sing for his supper anytime he likes, but singing a song praising Chairman Mao is shameful.

Oh, that’s right communists have no shame. The only thing that matters is the millions that the Chinese are pouring into Cuba so that the Castro family can remain in power.

And yes, Raúl doesn’t seem to have as “the same memory” as Fidel, especially when it comes to Mao.

When the USSR and China had an ideological falling out, (probably on which was the best method to eradicate opposition, executions or starvation), Fidel, who knew where his bread was buttered and preferred Stalinism, sided with the USSR in the squabble.

Fidel began, like his Soviet masters, to openly criticize Mao’s policies. At one point, Fidel even accused Mao of murdering innocent people.

But, everything’s good now since the Chinese come bearing dollars and Fidel has never had had a problem with selling Cuba to the highest bidding tyranny.

Video of Raúl’s “sing a song” performance:

Maybe he’ll duet with singing tyrant Hugo Chavez and sing songs in praise of Hitler when he visits Venezuela on his first trip there.

Tremenda “sing a song” that would be.

Letting The Lying Corps Lie

The Cuban regime’s propaganda machine is working overtime these days.

The propaganda machine has always had two purposes. Internally, its role is to lie to the Cuban citizens. Externally, it lies to the world by marketing the “revolution” and its chief architect, Fidel. They have been very successful at both. Lying is to communists as hammers are to carpenters.

Right now the emphasis is being placed on the marketing.

They’re selling oil, tons of it. They’re not sure exactly where it is or if you can even get at it but they have lots. And for a fee, any country or company that wants to try their luck on the drill baby drill roulette can have a go at trying to find the coveted crude.

They’re also marketing a book by non other than Cuba’s blogger in chief, Fidel.

Yes.

The 81 year old, terminally ill, tracksuit clad, retired despot wrote a book about Columbia, “La Paz en Columbia”. Destroying Columbia has always been one of Fidel Castro’s obsessions. In fact, one of his first “revolutionary” acts was his participation in “El Bogotazo.” And ever since he took power he has been trying to export his revolutionary disease to the South American country which is finally on the verge of eradicating the progress destroying Castro-virus.

Talk about ghost writing.

Talk about an unbelievable sub plot.

The regime is selling a story that an 82 yr. old, terminally ill man who is reported to have undergone almost a dozen intestinal surgeries, who is too weak to appear in public and who, in his last interview, could not keep a train of thought, even though the interview was highly edited, (In the middle of the interview he starts to talk about Einstein and the theory of relativity and interrupts himself and says: “he was born in Germany, you know”), spent 400 hours penning the 259 page book. Amazing! Not only that, he also penned hundreds of “reflections” too. (in his spare time, between changing the colostomy bag, hurricane forecasting and bossing his little brother around.)

But it gets better. The book markets the idea that Castro and his regime are the good guys in Columbia’s struggle to fight the armed Marxist-narco-trafficking insurgency that has devastated Columbian society for nearly 50 years. You see, Castro in the book tells of his regime’s efforts in bringing about a political solution to the conflict.

That’s rich. Castro exports his Marxist revolution to democratic Columbia, he trains and arms the rebels in a guerrilla war that spans decades and kills thousands. Then, when it’s clear that the guerrillas will never win, Castro tries to force the Columbian government to negotiate and share power with a bunch of hostage taking, narco-trafficking, bomb throwing communist criminals and sink Columbia by using its democratic institutions, like he did Venezuela, against them. And he’s the good guy. Even more amazing!

If the regime can sell that one, well, then they can sell just about anything, like the idea that Cuba is a worker’s paradise or a vast underwater oil field.

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Oh well. Never mind.

More on Barry O.’s Barrio Watch…

About a week late and about a trillion dollars short, an American politician has called President –Elect Obama’s “plan” for a National Civilian Security Force” Marxist. No kidding.

A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may—may not, I hope not—but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Rep. Broun, having never lived in a Marxist totalitarian dictatorship, cannot quite put his finger on it, but something in his gut tells him that a “national civilian security force” sounds, well, un-American and he’s right.

Over at the conservative web-site Hot Air, Ed Morissey contends that Rep. Broun’s statement hails the onset of ODS, Obama Derangement Syndrome. He also finds the Obama July 3, comments, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded,” rather innocuous:

In the context of Obama’s remarks above, though, he fairly clearly meant to at least include a volunteer force in outreach within and outside the US as some sort of Department of Peace-like indirect boost to national security…

…Nothing in that speech hints at a Gestapo-like organization at all.

Rep Broun’s remarks are likened to “hyperbole:”

If we plan to offer a rational alternative to the coming debacle of the next two years, then we’d better stick to facts and eschew hyperbole. We need to oppose the reality of the radical agenda proposed by Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress, not fantasies spun out of context-free snippets of speeches. The more critics invoke Hitler and Stalin instead of Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson, the better the reality of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi will seem in 2010.

Ok. Facts. I like Facts. I like jokes better: a Department of Peace?!? Very funny. We can call it the Ministry of Peace, the “minipeace” for short,-it has a certain familiar ring to it, no?

I agree with Rep. Broun that Obama’s proposal for a Civilian National Security Force has a Marxist ring to it, though I disagree with him that it will be Gestapo-like. You see, I had the misfortune of experiencing a “civilian national security force” in the flesh in Cuba. For the same reason, I also disagree with Morissey’s dismissal of the proposal as harmless.

The first Marxist red flags (hehehe...get it? red flags?) tactics can be found in the “official” script of the candidate Senator Obama’s speech on July 3. Back in July, I thought I had heard the Senator call for the civilian force in an audio of the speech and it made the hairs in the back of my neck stand at attention because of my Post Castro Stress Syndrome. I went to the Obama campaign website to make sure that I heard what I thought I heard and could not find the passage. Not thinking I was hearing things, I kept searching and thankfully, some intrepid citizens had preserved the given speech on a Youtube video. After the initial relief that I still had most of my marbles, I was shocked that the campaign had not included the potentially controversial passage in the “official” transcript. It seems like the Obama campaign already had a Department of Truth to go along with its proposed Department of Peace. The fact that the campaign tried to hide the words of the then presidential candidate by omitting them from the official transcript reeks of the kind of truth manipulation that occurs in Marxist regimes.

Obama, given his background as a community organizer, probably envisions a community based “security force”

Now, for folks that think like Senator Obama, National Security is a totally different thing than it is for folks with a more conservative mind set. Most lefties I know believe that the reason that America is being attacked by terrorists is because of our misguided and failed foreign policies. They keep telling me that the CIA created Bin Laden and that Saddam’s Iraq was our “client state.” They also argue that Iran had been our client state back in the days of the Shah and before the Islamic Revolution and that our backing of the despotic Shah caused the revolution and the ensuing hatred for America. They also tell me that our allegiance to Israel causes more problems than it is worth and that America’s insistence in holding despots to our standards of liberty and progress is antagonistic and counterproductive because it makes the rest of the world not “like” us. Evil manifests itself in the world not because it is inherently evil but because America causes it. It’s the Flip Wilson doctrine; the devil, America, The Great Satan, makes them do it.

Since these folks on the left are of the belief that America’s actions cause the security threats in the first place, In order for a civilian national security force to protect America, it has to change America so that it doesn’t offend any potential enemies out there and cause them to do evil things and so they “like” us. It also has to protect America from those who see the world in judgmental black and white and not in the enlightened relative shades of gray that the liberals do. It’s these people that believe in the antiquated notions of good and evil, right and wrong, that get us into these “security” messes in the first place.

You can see how the civilian national security force can morph and take on a different more ominous role. In order to protect America from these backward thinking, un-nuanced black and white type of folks, they would help protect the liberal ideals that would usher in a changed and transformed America.

They would “organize” the community in order to “educate” the citizenry into thinking less about themselves and more about the community, less about their individual happiness and more about collective purposes. What’s more secure than having everyone pull together as team towards a common goal?

Meetings at homes would be organized, community projects would be planned, neighborhood night watches would be instituted, T-shirts and hats would be distributed, programs for children would be started, workplace security details would be proposed.

These programs would, of course, all be coordinated through a national network funded by the Federal government with stipends, incentives and perks to the members of the “civilian national security force.” Perhaps even a new web-based group would be started.

The new community organization would then be responsible form promoting a mission and accomplishing a vision through different programs designed to keep people employed and busy-protecting an ideology and a cult of personality.

There would be voter registration and education drives along with massive get out the vote drives.

Those that are not interested in going to the meetings or volunteering or put posters up their homes would be shunned, ostracized, ridiculed and watched as potential “security” risks.

This is all very easy to organize when you have millions of “followers” who see a politician as the solution to all their problems and the answer to all their questions.

The "civilian security force" could be easily merged into existing non-profits and programs. No one would have to carry a gun or break your down in the middle of the night to make you comply with their programs. Their results are achieved much more subtly, by intimidation and peer pressure. You would not need thugs armed with night sticks or rifles to persuade you to tow the party line. But you would get neighborhood snitches with whistles, notepads and cell phones.
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I have seen this “civilian national security force” at work. In Cuba, they call it the CDR, Committees in Defense of the Revolution, and I know the kind of pressure that these kinds of organizations can put on citizens. They don’t have guns like the Gestapo, they just have a bunch of radical and committed individuals who have been organized to serve as the eyes and ears of the government and protect an ideology. I also know the kind of people that are attracted to it.

I know it sounds absurd and paranoid to the uninitiated, but it is not. And I’m not saying that it is going to happen in America, but I am saying that the idea of “civilian national security force” could have dangerous repercussions and detrimental effects on our constitutional rights, or “negative liberties” as our new president thinks of them.

And for those of you who say it cannot ever happen here, take a look at a homeowner's association. If people will agree to give up some of their property rights and freedom of expression as a trade off for some security, it is possible.

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UPDATE:

OK. So it's even a little more authoritarian than I thought. In Cuba, being a regime snitch is encouraged, but not compulsory. The Obama plan, according to Rahm Emmanuel, the incoming chief of staff, calls for a mandatory 3 month "Universal Civil Defense Training".

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UPDATE2:

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It seems I underestimated the Internet component of Obama's organizing plan. This article tells on how the Obama campaign plans to pioneer organizing the Presidents followers by using its vast e-mail phonebook to "convert his army of online activists into a viral lobbying and communications machine."

Stock Up On Toilet Paper ... (por si las moscas)

Wow. So like Obama kicked some Republican butt.

The left has entrenched itself into power in America.

The White House is about to get a tenant-a superhero- who is a deliberate stranger and whose secret identity has been protected from the public by a media that has willfully disregarded the powers entrusted to them by the Constitution- Their “negative liberties” in Barackspeak.

And so, I stay up real late to listen to the speeches. (Yawn). It occurs to me that McCain might have been working on this concession speech since March. The Caribou Barbie was there. She seemed to be holding back tears, like a woman who just found out her husband has been cheating on her and will not give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him. She doesn’t like to loose, this lady. She’s grown on me.

Finally, the President-elect of the United States comes out for his coronation speech. I’m listening intently for the Marxist code words that he tends to throw out in his speeches. I’m waiting for him to lay out his plans for a collective utopia and for the upcoming formation of his national civilian security force.

None of that, though, just the same ol’ “America is the best country on Earth so let’s change it” speech with some contrived “samplings” of Lincoln and King, sob stories and bumper sticker slogans -but in a new hopeful and changeful tone.

The only potentially collectivist words were in this passage:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.

And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

I wonder if Peggy Joseph from South Florida was aware that President Obama, rather than write her a monthly check so she doesn’t have to worry about her mortgage and filling her gas tank, was expecting her to “work harder and look after not only after ourselves but each other” “with a new spirit of service and sacrifice.” In Barackspeak, that basically means that Peggy now gets to worry about her neighbor’s mortgage and gas tank as well. I bet she never thought that this day would ever happen, either.

I have no idea how far President Obama is willing to act on his obvious socialist instincts.
But, stock up on toilet paper just in case.

Socialist countries are notorious for toilet paper shortages. Toilet paper is practically non-existent in Cuba and its considered a luxury. Maybe Obama will institute a luxury "sin" tax on toilet paper. That's called "a Florio" after a New Jersey Governor who did started to tax toilet paper (and raised everything else) in the 80's and wound up getting kicked out of office.

Ecclesiastical "Negative Liberties?"

Barack Obama on the Issues of Importance to Catholics - Upload a Document to Scribd

Obama's Newspeak UPDATED

Remember in High School when that weird English teacher made you read George Orwell’s “1984?”

That book was such a drag. We spent what seemed like an eternity going over “newspeak.”

How stupid was that- having to learn a new vocabulary just to read a dumb book?

Back when I read the book, 1984 was still a few years in the future, yet strangely, for me 1984 was in my past.

It was difficult to read a fictionalized account of what had been my life a few years before. I had come from a tropical Oceania complete with a Big Brother, the thought police and the ministry of truth.

I supposed if I were to read 1984 now, I might get a little misty eyed at Winston Smith’s life reminding me of my hellish childhood. But as a teenager I was tremendously annoyed.

But, back to 1984 and “newspeak.”

Yesterday, as I heard the 2001 tapes of presidential candidate Barack Obama commenting on the civil rights movement, the courts, the constitution and the founding fathers, all I could think of was “newspeak.”

Orwell was brilliant in coming up with “newspeak” to explain how Big Brother and the thought police partially controlled Oceania through speech. In practice, Marxist regimes aim at controlling discourse and thought processes through linguistic euphemisms.

Communists, socialists and fellow travelers all talk in “code.” Now, when I try to explain this “code” to the uninitiated, well, you know…they tell me I’m a paranoid exile that sees a communist bogeyman hiding behind every rock. Fair enough, I may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t communists lurking around. And believe me, they are they’re not going to come out and confess. They’re going to try to deceive and confuse you by talking in code. It’s what they do.

Seemingly innocuous words and phrases like “social justice” or “income redistribution” or “activities on the ground” or “coalition of powers” or "equality" or "brotherhood" all take on a Marxist aura when they are deciphered through a socialist code decoder.

Basically, what the Illinois State Senator was talking about way back in 2001, was his dismay that the founding fathers had not codified “egalitarianism” into the US constitution and that the Warren court hadn’t taken the admittedly radical step when it had the chance. That’s what he means when he says that he could now sit down at a lunch counter and order, if he “could pay for it.” If he could not pay for it and the white guy sitting next to him could, then he’s not equal. This is why wealth has to be redistributed-in order to achieve “economic justice” - code for egalitarianism.

Now, mankind is either genetically wired or created, (depending on one’s belief system), to act in the interests of self preservation. Under normal circumstances, man would not share his wealth with other men. It’s not in his best interests to do so. That’s where the state comes in. The state must, therefore, redistribute the wealth so that all men have more or less the same. Since the state has to force one man to give up what’s his for the benefit of another, it must do so by coercion or force, thus also equally distributing misery.

Marxists don’t see the world in terms of rights that come from their creator. The “creator” for the Marxist is an opiate-another form of crowd control. Man isn’t measured by being equal in the eyes of the state. Man is equal if he has the same relative to every other man. As long as all men are given the same rights by the state, then its fair – “social justice”-again, socialist code words for “egalitarianism.”

So when Senator Obama talks about “negative liberties” he’s really talking about the protection of individual rights which are negative, in his view, because they limit the state from instituting “social and economic justice”, egalitarianism, by coercion-his goal.

In Obama’s view, the problem with the Constitution is that it doesn’t say “what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.” In other words, Obama, believes that the Constitution is flawed because it doesn’t give the state the right to coerce another citizen to give you some of his wealth and achieve “social and economic justice” which code for egalitarianism.

So when you put Obama’s “spread the wealth” philosophy with his belief that the constitution is flawed because it stops short of giving the state the power to act “on your behalf,” you can see how the argument can be made that Obama’s “hope” and “change” are really just newspeak euphemisms for the socialist reorganization of society based on the Marxist principles of egalitarianism through activist judicial reinterpretation of a flawed constitution.

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You can. Really, if you know the code. And it isn't even a thought crime ... yet.

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UPDATE:

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A different and brilliant take on Obama's Newspeak from Bruce Walker at Free Thinker:

Notions like "positive liberty" are part of the web of thought control by language manipulation which Orwell described in 1984. If Obama cannot think of "positive liberty" as a contradiction in terms, then he simply cannot think. The conscious surrender of language to the needs of the party creates a self-made prison from which escape is, quite literally, inconceivable. These unguarded remarks by Obama display a mind trapped in a reality in which words are phantoms.

I think Walker lets Obama off the hook for his newspeak though by excusing Oboma for being a product of the left's newspeak "indoctrination.":

Iron and dull control of education, destruction of the nuclear family, disappearance of religion in public life, degradation of art and entertainment into tasteless mush, and, most of all, the politicization of everything in life -- these forces have created a new sort of human being, a person who lacks from life any tools of discernment or devices to describe life outside of the realm of collectivist political rhetoric.

There is something about Obama, many of us sense, which is different from any other politician. Socialism is inadequate to explain Obama. He is both more and less than that. The Left with all its odd menagerie of causes and claims is not enough either. Obama is part of that but part of something more disturbing. He is someone who can say "negative liberties" unaware that he is saying nothing at all.

I would argue that Obama is not the victim of newspeak who mindelessly repeats the Orwellian newspeak and socialist code but a practitioner in the art of socialist euphinistic linguitics- a true believer.

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Obama is certainly intelligent enough to have seen through the linguistic indoctranination that someone in our age group would have been subjected to in American academia.

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Young people in Cuba, where thay are subjected to the entirety of George Orwell's Ocenia ,are able to see through the propaganda even after generations of Big Brother, the thought police and the ministry of truth.

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Favorite line in the Article:

But implying that more state power somehow increases liberty is beyond mere Leftism. It is entry into that dead realm of Newspeak in which language is pureed into nonsense, and then nonsense is presented as argument.

Ha! That's great stuff. No pure there, just tasty chunks to chew on!

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What, Me Worry?

I’m usually the one pointing out the red flags around Obama.

But yesterday I was put in the unusual position of having to calm someone who is despondent about the prospect of an Obama presidency down. This Cuban American was going down the list of similarities between Obama and the Castro.

Obama, you see, was abandoned by his father and had another name until he was a teenager just like Castro….yaddah…yaddah…blah…blah…blah. They had a pretty extensive list.

Over some cold ones, we came to the conclusion that even if Obama is a Marxist, he won’t have enough time to transform our fledging socialist goverment unto a full fledge totalitarian state in eight years. There’s just not enough time. I mean, even Chavez hasn’t been able to do it to Venezuela in 10 years.

That could never happen here…

So we kept watching the football game. We came to the conclusion that even after Obama’s impending victory, we would still be able to watch football on TV or go to the game and keep making our mortgage payments to the government and our car lease payment to the government owned bank. Nothing’s changed, really. Just a temporary swing of the pendulum to the left.

So I get up this morning and find out that the Socialist wing of the Democratic party is busy at work planning the birth of the People’s Republic of America.

Barney Frank wants to cut military spending by 25%. John, reporting for duty, Kerry wants a “The New Deal II”. The, there’s a plan out there to socialize my 401K .

All this on top of what looks like the criminalization of dissent as evidenced by the attacks on Joe the Plumber and the upcoming push to re-institute the “fairness doctrine.”

Meanwhile, “Russia's Central Elections Committee has also assigned its Centre for the Study of Election Technology to review the U. S. election campaign.” A preliminary report obtained by the Russian press formerly know as Pravda, the official organ of the Communist Party of USSR, and organization that knows a thing or two about propaganda says that the American MSM, the official organ of the Democratic Party of the United States has given Barack Obama a “hidden advantage.”

Still, all this only takes to a European style Social Democracy. With time, their inefficient nature causes a swing to the right as has happened in France and Germany, for example. Equilibrium.

And even in the European socialist governments there hasn’t been any serious erosion of civil rights…

…Unless there’s some international crisis happens that could cause martial law to be declared.

What are the chances of that?

It’s not like anyone’s guaranteeing a crisis or anything. Is it?

Ok. So I called my friend this morning and told him that if a white pigeon lands on Obama during his inauguration speech, I’m outta here.

Counting Your Chickens Before They Come Home To Roost

I guess it’s all over but the crying.

The collective American Pravda has declared that Obama has won. The election is a mere formality like in Cuba.

The candidate is already preparing for a transition. The celebration is on and the senator is trash talking:

"If you'll stand with me, then I know that we can win Virginia and we can win this election and we can finally bring the change we need to Washington," Obama told the estimated crowd of 35,000. "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here."

A righteous wind at his back? Hmm. Maybe he was walking in front of Biden and mistook a “self –righteous” wind from his blowhard running mate for a plain old righteous wind.

Anyway, as his friend Ayres knows, you don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing and Obama feels the wind is blowing his way.

So does the Cuban regime who is salivating at the thought of a fellow traveler blowing into the White House.

The Cuban spy diplomat, Jorge Bolanos, who heads the Cuban Interest Section in D.C. is starting an awareness campaign to generate world pressure to “kill” a half-century old U.S. trade embargo genocide on Cuba by the root of all humanity’s evils, the USA.

The Cuban regime’s goal of talks without pre conditions is about to become a reality on January 20. The regime’s pre condition of being treated as “an equal partner in negotiations." at any kind of a meeting with the Americans seems close at hand since Senator Obama has stated his desire to meet with the Castros without pre conditions (on his side). Communists do not negotiate and never will. Their idea of negotiations is for the US to end the embargo which is what the regime means when it says that it wants to be treated as an equal:

In an IPS interview with Esteban Morales, a Cuban academic and researcher Esteban Morales, a Cuban academic and researcher, Morales lays out the regime’s preference for Senator Obama:

"I’d like to see him win. I think that with Obama in office, the possibilities for change would be richer,"

It seems, though that Raúl is giving the President Select, Obama, an out by agreeing to talks without having to deal with the embargo:

He pointed out that Cuban President Raúl Castro has said on more than one occasion that Cuba is willing to negotiate to find a solution to the long-standing bilateral conflict, provided that its "independence" is respected and that discussions be "guided by the principles of equality, reciprocity, non-interference and mutual respect."

With regard to defining a possible agenda for such talks, Morales said that "the key factor is that the parties cannot come to the negotiating table with preconditions." "If that is achieved, the rest is just drawing up a smart list of issues mutually agreed on, ranging from the most simple matters to the most complex," he said.

In Morales’s view, the embargo imposed in the early 1960s, which Obama says he will not lift, is a "political problem" that could be left out of the debate if both countries decide not to discuss it.In that case, the two nations could begin to regularize economic relations on the basis of the already existing trade flow, which is limited to food imports by Cuba paid up front in cash.

A quick gusano translation: The regime will meet with Obama to shore up his diplomacy cred if they get “credit.” Cred pro quo.

On the other side of the globe, the Iranians are also salivating at the prospect of an Obama Presidency.

"We are leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational, even though we know American policy will not change that much,"

Meanwhile, Al Qaida is trying reverse jihadist psychology by backing McCain so that people will vote for Obama.

Joe the Dissident?

Is this a sign of things to come?

Senator Obama is running around the country asking for people to vote for him. He’s shaking hands, kissing babies, eating pie and answering questions.

His path crossed with one Joe the plumber, just some guy in an Ohio neighborhood. Joe asked him a question. Obama’s answer wasn’t exactly politically correct in most of flyover small town America and the opposition jumped all over it. That’s politics.

But in the America of Obama’s supporters it was a crime against humanity that had to be avenged.

And Obama’s minions set out to destroy Joe the plumber for having the audacity of hoping to change his lot in life from employee to small business owner-to live the American dream without being penalized by the government for achieving his dream.

The plumbers union, the sindicato, set out to discredit the pipe fitter. Had he been a member of the union, he would have probably been expelled for having ideologically deviant pipe dreams. His career would have gone down the drain. They do that in Cuba. They took my dad’s syndicate card away so he couldn’t get a job with the only employer in town, Fidel, because he had the audacity to want to leave the island.

Then, the public relations arm of Campaign Obama, the press, decided to dig into Joe’s past. They threw the kitchen sink at the plumber, airing all the dirty laundry from his washing machine. Was the Joe that was practicing plumbing without a license really a McCain mole- a plant? They do that to those who dare ask questions in Cuba also-discredit them. They call them mercenaries in Cuba- CIA moles and spies.

It seems that Obama can only be asked questions within certain parameters or boundaries. Any challenges to his officially created persona are considered attacks. Any questions that are too tough to answer with a platitude or slogan are an assault. If anyone steps over the line, their transgressions are dealt with swift and strong personal retaliations by overzealous followers. Fidel once said “within the revolution, everything, outside the revolution, nothing.” It would appear Joe the Plumber crossed the line and stepped outside Obama’s audatious boundaries.

With the fairness doctrine, rearing its ugly head just over the November horizon, what was once an inquisitive citizen exercising his or her right to demand answers form politicians asking them for their votes in America, could now become a dissident with all the honors, rights, and privileges pertaining thereto.

I know...I'm a hysterical paranoid Cuban exile..BUT it has already happened to Joe the Plumber...and Obama has even been elected yet.

Welcome To The Jungle

The media has been quoting Cuba’s blogger in chief, el compañero Fidel, giving his opinions about the American presidential race.

Reading Fidel’s ramblings is painful, but somebody has to do it since reading what the AP, Reuters and others decide to quote can be um…misleading.

Fidel, in his reflections, gives incredible insights into his warped world view. He peppers his observation with communist phraseology to continue the 50 year old façade that he’s a true believing Marxist.

In the name of his reflection Castro says it all: “The law of the jungle.” To Castro, the predator, you’re either the predator or the pray. Nations are also governed by the same rules and the countries have to compete for a limited pool of wealth that is arbitrarily distributed by the luck of the geographical draw.

Among countries: those with a better climates and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; those that master technology, have greater development and handle unlimited media resources, and those that, in contrast, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between countries described as rich or poor.

It is the law of the jungle.

Interestingly, Castro is still clinging to the idea that all the world’s wealth is finite and mankind is condemned to constantly struggle over it. He refuses to acknowledge that wealth can be created, that the pie can made bigger. That’s why when he took over Cuba, he distributed the existing pie to the powerful and strong, himself, and never created any more wealth in an island blessed by nature with fertile land, ideal climate and breath taking natural beauty.

Castro marvels at the fact that the European whites, who are the power elite in the United States, have not solved the Obama problem by following the law of the jungle by praying on the weak minority as he certainly would have. And again, he tacitly endorses the senator, whom he once called the “most progressive” candidate.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Senator Obama when asked why he would raise taxes to small businessmen who make over $250,000 a year, he responded that he wanted to “spread the wealth.” That’s an interesting answer. Rather than wanting to create more wealth so that more people can make over $250,000 a year, Obama, like his fan in Havana, prefers to redistribute the existing finite wealth. This approach has been tried ad-nauseum with no success all over the world. In Cuba, it only succeeded in making everyone equally miserable living in a place ruled by the law of the jungle where only the strong survive.

Of course, to the left, whatever suffering the citizens have to endure to grow the power and influence of the government is of no consequence. The expansion of the all knowing state that ultimately decides how the pie is split and the power that goes along with it, is what's important.

Reaching

I have been anticipating this for a few days now.

Ever since to the growing chorus asking questions about Senator Obama’s relationship “with some guy in his neighborhood” started to get louder and his campaign continued to give flippant answers and blow the questioners off, I knew it was coming.

I knew that, eventually, when the talking points about Ayers just being a guy in the neighborhood, and Obama being wet behind the ears when the bombs where going off, and the whinny “guilty by association” rationale weren’t enough, and their backs where against the wall, that they would try to bring John McCain down to Barack Obama’s level.

And who better to scapegoat than the Miami Cubans, the “go to” ethnics, with whom McCain has some common bonds and warm ties.

Today two articles surfaced that argue that since McCain is friendly with communist hating Miami Cubans who are pressuring President Bush to pardon the founder of Alpha 66, Eduardo Arocena ,that he like, Obama, is guilty of , in the words of Sarah Palin, “palling around with terrorists.”

One of the articles comes from the Huffington Post and it tells the sad sorry tale of Max Lesnik of all people, (talk about guilty by association), whose body shivers at the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin in accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists” when the Republicans embrace all the Little Havana terrorists.

Roberto Lovato, the author, takes all his shots at the McCain campaign through the words of Max Lesnik. To Lesnik, of course, anyone who yearns for a democratic Cuba free from his friends, the terrorist Castro twins, are terrorists because they don’t lick the tyrant’s jack boots while they’re getting kicked, like Lesnik delights in doing.

The other more innocuous article comes to us from the Miami New Times blog, Riptide, and it tries to draw a parallel between Ayers and Arocena in a piece called the ‘Tale of two “terrorists”’ in order to excuse Obama’s refusal to come clean about his relationship with Ayers.

Comparing the Ayers affair to McCain’s association with a coveted constituency in south Florida is not only a reach but an exercise in intellectual dishonesty and moral relativity.

Bill Ayers’ terror spree with his communist Weather Underground was meant to bring about a revolution that would destroy American society and value system and plunge it into the totalitarian world that the Soviet Union and Cuba where suffering under at the time, and that unfortunately, Cuba still endures.

Arocena’s Alpha 66 was fighting the same terrorist movement that was fueling and financing Ayers and his merry band of mad bombers. The radical groups of the late 60’s and early 70’s were mostly comprised of Marxist “revolutionaries” who where being financed and supported by the Soviets and by Fidel Castro, the leader and role model of the Hemisphere’s would-be revolutionaries, guerrillas and terrorists.

By fighting the international communist movement that was trying to bring down American society, Arocena was merely trying to preserve the American value system. These Cuban men like Arocena who, in the sixties and seventies, decided to fight communist aggression with some aggression of their own where freedom loving men who saw themselves as warriors in an international struggle for freedom and liberal democratic values.

When John McCain was rotting in a Viet-Cong jail being tortured by his communist captors, some Cubans among them, William Ayres and his friends were trying to turn America into another North Viet Nam. Arocena was trying to stop Fidel Castro from fulfilling Che Guevara’s promise of creating a “hundred Vietnams” including one within America’s borders.

While one set of terrorists where trying to destroy the American way of life and enslave our children under a totalitarian communist system, other “terrorists” where fighting back to prevent that from happening.

Senator Obama and his campaign keeps reminding us that he was only 8 years old when Ayers was setting off bombs. Now, he’s 47. These days, terrorists like Castro, don’t take over countries by terror and revolution. That’s the old Marxist playbook. Nowadays, countries are taken over and enslaved by fast talking politicians that promise change and more equality between the rich and the poor like Chavez, Morales, Correa and Ortega. They later enshrine themselves into power by fixing elections and amending their charters to create constitutional dictatorships. The terrorists of old like Ayers and Castro have never changed their Marxist stripes, just their methods.

That is why it is so important to some American voters that senator Obama explain his relationship with Ayers and ally the well founded fears that some of us have that he’s not another of these 21st Century Socialists that has been backed, groomed by and represents the old Marxist revolutionaries and terrorists of the 60’s.

Food Shortages

If you were to drop in from outer space and read an article on Cuba, you would never know that hunger, deprivation and rationing existed in Cuba well before the island was ravaged by hurricanes, as this erroneously report in this SFGate article claims:

… the government of Cuban President Raúl Castro this week announced a nationwide food-rationing policy.

Now, consumers will only be permitted to purchase limited amounts of rice, beans, root vegetables, plantains and other basic foods…

Cubans have been suffering the indignity of “la libreta” for 46 years now.
The regime, of course, blames the 46 year shortage of food on the “embargo” and the miscreants and useful idiots in the US blame the “embargo” of the Cuban Exiles in Miami.

Now that the regime has basically shut down the farmer’s markets, Havana has 40, by decreeing a freeze on prices, the shelves are bare:

In markets around Havana, customers found stretches of mostly vacant vendor stalls and limited supplies of food. A market in the Vedado district offered only papayas, a small stack of melons and a few bulbs of garlic.

The regime is forcing all goods into its own stores where the rationing cards must be used including “humanitarian aid” which it is diverting to its hard currency stores.

As a matter of fact, Guillermo Fariñas of Cubacan press reports that there was a spontaneous protest in the city of Santa Clara when some 500 citizens witnessed boxes clearly marked “humanitarian aid” in Portuguese being unloaded from a truck and delivered into the “Siboney” hard currency store. The police, state security and rapid response brigades were called in to repress the citizens who where verbally abusing the truck drivers for diverting the humanitarian aid into a for profit state – run store.

The Wink

Obama has become a phenomenon.

He has “followers,” not supporters. Children sing him songs. Celebrities swoon.

He’s a rock star. The cult of personality personified.

I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if conservatives, for example, started a personality cult of their own …

Ronald Reagan used to talk about America being a shiny city on a hill. But, my whole life all I ever found was a dilapidated trailer park adorned with Walmart whicker citronella torches on top of a landfill. But I keep looking.

Whenever I went to Mexico or the Bahamas for spring break, (they don’t have politically correct liberal regimes in these countries and they serve you liquor without an ID), I would always pretend to be Canadian because I was ashamed to be from the same country as Bill Clinton who had single handedly, (he held the cigar in the other hand), made America synonymous with lip service and oral sex.

There were other reasons I pretended to be Canadian. It was embarrassing to be from the country with the only military that could turn any place into a parking lot with conventional arms-and that’s just one branch of service, the Marines- and be bitch slapped across the globe by a bunch of rag-tag suicidal religious fanatics while half of my country was more worried about their constitutional rights than what caliber slug would go between their crazed beady eyes.

I was also confused to live in a country where all the movie stars, ( I get ALL my historical perspective from Hollywood movies-and don’t laugh, the college professors who write all the history books are even more biased than Hollywood directors who at least have to answer to movie critics), who made believe for a living would come out of character, (or assume another character), and act like they cared about , global warming, for example, but then act like they we’re acting by turning around and acting totally contrary to the way they urged me to act. (See? It’s confusing.)

Anyway, I tough I would never reach the shiny city. I had lost hope for me and humanity. All seemed lost.

Then I hear her name. Sarah. A biblical name. That was good.

Then I saw her face. And now, I’m a believer. (Hey, if Barry O & co. can steal his campaign slogan from David Bowie, I can steal from The Monkeys.)

No, she didn’t make the oceans stop their rise or heal the planet, but she aroused me and healed my libido-and it is all about me, me, me. Not a shiny city on a hill but a shiny happy face atop two luscious mountains.

And then I heard her speech. A heavenly voice. And she talked about dogs and moms I love dogs and moms. I love dogs so much, I don’t even eat hot dogs, unless you call them frankfurters, in which case, I’ll eat them because I don’t love Frank, although I love frank people.

She was mesmerizing. She told stories of America’s last frontier, about moose and snow machines.

But when she spoke, I couldn’t really listen to her words because for I was so captivated by her personality and personal aura that all I heard was a choir of angels. Is she an angel? Was that a glow? Or was it the stage lights? It didn’t matter what she said. She could talk in circles for all I cared. It was all about her. Sa-Rah! Sa-Rah! Even her name was like a cheer! A mantra, a prayer.

She spoke of hockey and six packs and she was fertile. Five kids worth of fertile and still looked just like she did when she was a beauty queen years ago! Imagine… a beauty queen vice-president. Better looking than that Merkel woman and hotter than what his name in France’s model wife. Finally, something to be proud of! No longer would I have to hold my head in shame and pretend to be Canadian in front of all the people who hailed from countries America had liberated twice in one century!

And last night…sigh. Well, let me tall ya, I just love the way she says that, she can call me Joe or whatever she wants anytime she wants…she, Sarah, winked at me. Right in the middle of the most important day in her life, she looked right at the camera and winked at ME.

Imagine that, a candidate that winks at ME.

The sound of the ensuing ridicule would be deafening and well deserved and yet when you read people talk about Obama in such ridiculous terms, you hear crickets.

(Wink)

A Little Catholic Propaganda...

Just A Thought

El compañero Fidel continues his ideological musings from the sidelines, yet it’s clear that the First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and therefore, still Cuba’s leader has had a resurgence of health and influence of late.

As Raúl has remained out of sight, Fidel has been leading the ideological charge from his blog and his hard line sycophants in “La Mesa Redonda”

If in fact it’s Fidel who is writing, and I believe it is, it is clear that at least mentally, Fidel is dong much better.

And it leads me to ponder what kind of resources have been invested into his recovery.

According to Jesús Marzo Fernández an ex-regime functionary, Cuba has spared no expense in acquiring the latest and greatest equipment available to treat the tyrant, have a medical team at his disposal 24/7 and trying experimental procedures including stem cell treatments designed to help Castro regain his mental agility.

According to his sources, the regime has invested $48 Million in the tyrant’s health.

Let’s say that between Cuban hyperbole and the normal deterioration of information that happens when information is passed from person to person by word of mouth, that they have spent $20 Million. (ever play telephone in 5th grade?) That’s 4 times what the US offered to send to the hurricane battered island.

Habitat for Humanity can build a simple home for about $2,500. Assuming the regime’s 20% cut, that’s 6,667 homes that could have been built with the money that was used to keep Fidel writing his reflections.

6,667 families could have had shelter and we would have been spared…

…just a thought…

Kindred Spirits

Sometimes I read the on-line newspapers and my head feels like its going explode. Like Marta La Cocinera says, “EHS-Exploding Head Syndrome-there’s a lot of that going around lately”

For example, why would the Cuban vice president, Ramón Machado Ventura, get THREE standing ovations at Harlem event? The fact is that this man has been an integral part of a regime that has oppressed its people for 50 years, a regime that is responsible for the death of over 100,000 of its citizens, a regime that is racist and rules as a white majority over a majority brown/black population running the island more like a slave plantation than a country doesn’t seem to matter.

It makes no sense.

But then again, you read about the Josh Howard disparaging the national anthem and about the event held for Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and you just have get a grip on you EHS.

It’s all about kindred spirits.

All these folks have something in common in that they reject American values and blame these values for everything that is wrong with the world,

When they hear a guy like Chavez or Ahmadinejad speak, it strikes a chord with them. It makes sense. Kind of like when Navin R. Johnson heard rock for the first time or when the clingers in flyover country listen to Sarah Palin.

Well, it’s Friday and I’m going over to buy some libations for happy hour with WaMu debit card…hopefully it still works or else I’m going to have a serious EHS relapse.

The Trouble With Money

One of the inherent problems in relaxing the remittance limits to Cuba to deal with the aftermath of hurricanes Gustav and Ike is that not all Cubans have relatives in the US to send them money.

When you have a situation where one neighbor has cash and another doesn’t and both are equally desperate to feed their kids and survive, it can get hostile. Also, the majority of blacks in Cuba don’t have relatives abroad so it adds a race to an already unfair situation.

Because of this, I would prefer that the regime allow the US to reach all the hurricane victims. But, fat chance of that happening.

I have, unfortunately, experienced the conflict and confrontations that can happen after a natural disaster like a hurricane in Cuba when the necessities of life become scarcer with each passing day. Even between family members things can get dicey.

But in my experience, the real problem after the hurricane comes from the regime itself. The Cuban people tend to be generous and neighborly and share whatever they have with their neighbors. But, the Cuban regime is another story. It has a civil paramilitary civilian security arm which it regulates through the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, the CDR’s, These communist foot soldiers of the regime at the local level are the ones that control the neighborhood through fear and intimidation. These are not the most compassionate in the neighborhood. In fact they are usually the most bitter, envious and thuggish elements of society.

After a hurricane, more so than usual, they relish exerting their “power” by taking every advantage to be had for themselves and their friends while making sure that those that don’t sympathize with Fidel and his sick ideology get the short end of the stick.

Now how do these elements react when a “gusano” gets money and they, “the powers that be”, only get to wallow in their misery and frustration?

Here’s one example:

The diplomatic note went ignored amid several reports that Cubans receiving cash storm aid from an exile group in Miami were being threatened by state security.

Melba Santana, the wife of a political prisoner in Las Tunas, said that when she attempted to distribute some money to neighbors from $300 in storm aid sent by the Cuban American National Foundation, state security agents threatened to criminally charge her.

''Let's see how far they are willing to take this, how far they are willing to sacrifice people's suffering,'' Santana said in a telephone interview. ``It was a miserable little $10 I was giving out and people are in need.''

I certainly hope that this is an isolated incident and not a sign of things to come.

Just The Facts:

From Henrietta H. Fore, USAID Administrator, here’s a summary of the steps taken by the US agency responsible for distributing US Aid and response to natural disasters, USAID.

The rest of the noise really doesn’t matter much.

If the Cuban regime refuses these generous offers, and continues to make unreasonable demands, there is little that the US can do to help the Cuban people short of a liberating invasion……We cannot force Cuba to take our aid.

FACT SHEET

U.S. Offers New Direct Humanitarian Aid to Cuban Government; Humanitarian Organizations Set to Move U.S. Aid to Cuba

The U.S. Government has made a fourth offer of critical humanitarian assistance to the people of Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. In response to Cuba's humanitarian needs USAID is moving forward to provide up to $5 million in emergency relief to Cuban hurricane victims through international relief agencies and non-governmental organizations.

In summary, the U.S. government has officially offered assistance to Cuba on four separate occasions:

September 3, 2008:

The U.S. government issued a disaster declaration (on Hurricane Gustav) and provided $100,000 in cash relief assistance to humanitarian organizations on the ground.

The U.S. government also offered to provide a humanitarian assessment team to assist in producing rapid emergency assessments of health, sanitation, water, shelter and food.

September 12,2008:

The U.S. government provided an additional $100,000 (on Hurricane Ike) in cash assistance to relief organizations on the ground, and affirmed our intention to channel assistance through international organizations. The U.S. government reiterated its offer to provide a humanitarian assessment team.

September 13, 2008:

The U.S. government announced up to $5 million in a relief package that included an unconditional offer of humanitarian assistance to benefit 135,000 Cuban hurricane victims. Despite the Cuban Government's rejection of this offer, international relief agencies and non-governmental organizations will receive U.S. government funding for emergency relief assistance.

September 19, 2008:

The U.S. government offered to unconditionally provide additional relief supplies directly to Cuba relief services at a value of approximately $6.3 million. These supplies are composed of family emergency shelters and household kits which will assist up to 48,000 Cubans affected by the hurricanes.

The U.S. government will continue to monitor the situation in Cuba. For more information about USAID and its programs go to www.usaid.gov. The American people, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, have provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for nearly 50 years.

Here are some of the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s thoughts on the subject:

The U.S. had $2 million in emergency supplies ready to go, pending a report from the usual assessment team about where help was needed. Not so fast, said Fidel. First, Havana refused to accept the aid because the assessment team is a "condition," and Havana can't accept help with strings attached. Washington offered to drop the assessment team and send the $2 million anyway. The regime still said "no." This time the problem was that Cuba can't take charity from a country with an embargo against it.

In a U.S. presidential election year, snowballs have a better chance in Havana than the nearly 50-year-old Cuban embargo has of being overturned in Washington. This week there was some good news, however, when the Bush administration announced that $1.65 million in
supplies will be distributed through nongovernmental organizations that work in Cuba. That Fidel will let that aid through is unquestionably a sign of Cuban desperation.

If the Cuban regime was serious about negotiating with the US about the relaxation of some of the sanctions currently imposed on the island, it would begin the process by accepting the aid and then talking.

Instead we get Fidel Castro himself warning in his blog that:

Any product that enters Cuba from the United States for a counterrevolutionary purpose must be returned or confiscated.

He does, however, prefer that you send cash:

Those who receive remittances from the United States can, upon paying the relevant tax, buy the regular rations at extremely low prices and also purchase goods in the hard-currency shops which sell products that are now significantly more expensive elsewhere in the world.

So there you have it, your marching orders, right from the horse’s mouth. Send him money. He needs the “relevant tax” and the profits.

The Shoe Doesn't Fit Zapatero

Cranky old guy John McCain came to South Florida early this week.

When he was being interviewed on Miami’s Radio Caracol, he totally confused and angered the MSM with one of his answers.

McCain was being asked about the relationship between the US and the likes of Chavez or Morales. The MSM was of course disappointed that McCain didn’t volunteer to welcome Hugo Chavez to Washington and put him up in the Lincoln bedroom without any pre-conditions.(except maybe a suitcase full of cash…but that’s another post)

McCain was then asked whether he would meet with this blog’s “favorite” European, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain’s very Socialist prime minister.

McCain reiterated his position:

"I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively,"

But, but, pero…

The questioner tried to clarify, "Okay, but I'm talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?"

(actually, Zapatero is the Prime Minister of Spain, not the president)

"I will meet with any leader who has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't,"

Said the cranky old white guy.

That was more than the MSM could bear. Why McCain seemed to be lumping Zapatero in with the likes of Chavez and Castro….surely he must have Bush disease from voting with Bush 90% of the time….(That’s the fun thing about the MSM they swallow a fake lure hook line and sinker and yet let the real worm get away…McCain is actually more like Ahhnold except he can’t lift his arms, he’s crankier and harder to understand…) and was having his own Parvez Musharaff moment. It’s must be ignorance, senility or both.

Does he not know who Zapatero is, that Spain is in Europe, that Spain is a NATO ally?

What a gaffe! The MSM marveled.

It’s interesting how a presidential candidate who gives away the store before his inevitable coronation as President of the World by announcing that he would meet with all our enemies without any preconditions, gets hailed for being an enlightened diplomat while McCain is seen as a dunce for even insinuating that even our allies should be held to some “liberal” standards before invitations are extended.

Zapatero was thrown in with Castro and Chavez by the cranky old white guy because he has earned a place in that trash heap of humanity by the actions of his very socialist government.

Since taking office, Zapatero has made it a priority to prop up the Castro dictatorship which directly affects the political and social stability of this hemisphere.

He has done so because of ideology and to protect the quasi-colonial business interests of Spanish companies in Cuba at the expense and exploitation of the Cuban workers.

His government reversed course and rather than continue as the advocate for the oppressed Cuban people in the European Union as the previous Spanish government had, it became the chief promoter of the Cuban communist regime in Brussels, working to lift sanctions and normalize diplomatic relations with the regime and promote “critical dialogue” with Havana.

When the cranky old guy said:

"I will meet with any leader who has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't,"

He knew exactly who and what Zapatero is. Too bad the MSM doesn’t or what's worse, doesn’t want to know.

Zapatero and the Spanish know that the shoe, zapato, of a “leader who has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty" doesn’t fit Zapatero and there will be no all-expense paid trip to Washington in his future in the unlikely chance that the cranky old white guy gets elected.

Maybe just some “critical dialogue.”

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